Puppy Grass: Creative Garden Challenge

It's such a shame to think of Mimosa as a weed but it does straggle around the place so much and those snaggy little thorns have drawn my blood and splintered their ends in my fingers too often. Not a war, just me chipping away at it when I'm in the mood.

Then I realised that this plant knows that mood.

The flowers are beautiful little violet globes but everybody loves Mimosa for its leaves that shrink from your touch. Sensitive plant is what I learnt it as. A treasured, and often abused, house-plant back then, but now in a different land, a creeping weed.

The shrinkage of leaves expands depending on how hard you touch them. Apply brute force and the wave of reaction runs further.

But then a dim light started glowing in my mind: I didn't even need to touch them. Somehow they can see me coming and fold their leaves before I even start hacking. They cower and thereby make themselves much harder to spot. I thought perhaps it was the vibration of my step but I walk everywhere in many moods and it's only when my gaze targets mimosa that the mimosa hides. Realising this triggered greater respect so now I am reluctant to chop it from its roots and this ex-weed is growing rampant.

It also planted a thought. Is it only mimosa? I start walking the garden with excited suspicion. Alert to the possibilities and confused about how to tell.

A stroll post-beer and the grass dances with me. I lie in it and watch with a grin as my hair joins in. Some stems bend to touch my face and I playfully blow them away. They come back like puppies. We enjoy the moment together then I sleep on it with the grass no doubt shaking to my snore.

I was trained for science so have a cynical eye. Air moves making grass move. Something real to test. I shield the grass from any breeze and use a video camera to record its movement. Repeating this with and without the wind-shield, with and without me, and with me in different moods. The work is tedious and I feel stupid to be doing it.

But I finish what I started and learn that wind makes grass dance. And would have left it there but for a lucky accident. I click fast-forward and suddenly pick out a different movement. Amongst the crazy thrashing there is a greater shift, a slow bending one way or another. Disbelief becomes wonder as I check the other clips. This grass is reacting to me. Drawn by my initial positive mood of genuine interest it turns towards me. Leaves and stems bend as though I have a magnetic pull, the force strongest the closer I am. But as my mood disintegrates into boredom then frustration the effect reverses. I repell the grass.

At first I am lost in unanswered thoughts of "why?" but they soon switch to "who else?".

My attention lands on Tribulus flowers. I have time-lapsed them as they open at dawn but do so again with me joining the sun. Once I try with a cheery mood born from old "Cheers" episodes and once with angry thoughts of being manipulated by those who hide. Not only do the flowers arch towards me or recoil from me according to my mood, they also open and close in tune to the mood. Even more remarkable is that I do not need the video camera. I can actually see it happening without technological aid. All it needs is an open eye.

The revelation rocks my world. I was educated to believe my education, which now looks so foolishly arrogant. More importantly it hatches a yearning. A chance to communicate with plants. Could I ask them questions? How? Could they tell me what they need? How could I listen? Could this garden become a collaboration? I am still trying to dislodge all my past training enough to allow me to get to grips with these possibilities. That may take a while.

In the meantime, another thought plants itself in my head. Is it only me who knows this? But I am not thinking of other people here. In truth I am not really interested in them, although I appreciate the unfairness of this attitude to those who freed their minds before me. No, I am looking towards the wiser world. The hare that shelters in the tall grass every day. Does it talk to that grass? How would the grass react? Do the hunters of hares try to read the grass in turn? The chain of possibilities overwhelms me.

Too much, too soon. And I can feel science dragging me away from the beauty. So I let the questions dance in the breeze for a while as I have another beer with the puppy grass.

Written in response to this week's Hive Garden #creativegarden challenge.